Chapter 7
7
Abe
The next day, you are exhausted. You remember with your eyes closed, white lips, the blankets pulled up to your chin. Your voice is like flashes in the radio, flares sent up. Soon, David calls and I put him on speakerphone so he can read you some new Sedaris that he’s sure will make you laugh. He’s in California—orange trees and pomegranates and a much younger partner, whom we love. They send olive oil, dates, and cookbooks for vegetarians. You’ve done their portraits more than once. Their favorite is presidential, over the top, framed in heavy gold, their bulldog, Toothy, between them, and they have it, so proudly, in their living room. Front and center. They say they’re with us, they love you. We hang up.
You’ve gotten a second wind. You start up again. You want to remember.
You remember the brownstone: mahogany panels, the hexagonal room at the top where we put citrus trees that we bused down from Harlem, and how they grew up against the glass in winter like modern dancers onstage. You remember how the northern light made your work better, the brass stove, pink marble in the bathroom, bookshelves stacked with art. You remember I got you boxes from the liquor store for your art supplies. You remember asking about every detail of my class. Every Tuesday, you packed me dinner.
You remember that when Dr. Ira Schulz of San Fernando bought a painting for two thousand dollars—the violet one with flecks of gray—you took us to Barney Greengrass. You remember how you’d never felt someone else’s pride like that. I leaned across the table and got cream cheese on my shirt. That never stopped, you say. The cream cheese? I ask. I just want to hear your laugh.
You remember keeping the windows open in January, the Guggenheim, two pots of coffee before lunch so you could paint (you were working the night shift then). You remember finding inspiration in everything. A penny, a raisin, a tooth, a book, a building, a crocheted lobster, a crow in the snow. You remember how many times you tried to draw your mother. You remember trying to remember her: it felt like playing a piano with no keys.
I feed you soup. I tell you we can stop. No, you say, and then something that sounds like “this is for us,” but I’m not sure.
I want you to know that it never felt like I was supporting you. Like you were living in my house or I was taking care of us both—even if it was a different time and I was raised differently. Instead, you bought me books, bound my journals with pebbled blue leather, brought in greens from the Park and put them about the house in vases you’d painted. You came to bed late and held my back and said, What a day. What a day. What a day.
After a while, Bernie comes. She pads up the stairs in her socks, swabs your face with a warm cloth, makes a pot of cerasee tea. I go down to the kitchen, pretend to be having breakfast. My pajamas are inside out. This is not the first time. When was the last time I trimmed my nose hairs? Took out a fresh pair of slacks?
Bernie asks me if she can make me some toast, when was the last time I’ve eaten? Okay, fine; toast, good. But also: I want someone to hold my hand.
Instead, I keep on.
I remember you wore robes made of silk and my tall navy socks; you kept a pen in the bun in your hair. You remember how on Sunday evenings, my mother came over to do laundry, to see your work, to drop off a roasted chicken with garlic and lemon. We ate it with green beans and cucumbers and, sometimes, applesauce. Inspiration, you realized, could be born from ease. I was working on a collection of stories about boats and bridges, missed opportunities and fate. You were working with twine and ribbon. Sometimes, you would help Bea with her bottlecaps. She has such specific vision, you’d say. I’m all over the place. But it was never a question of wanting to give up.
What I appreciated about working for my father was how it clarified time for me. There were no fourth drafts.
You remember that when I asked you to marry me, we were on that stone bench that overlooks Conservatory Water, eating blackberry ice cream with peanuts. A publisher had just taken on my poetry and first novel and I brought you the letter with my grandmother’s diamond ring.
You remember our wedding. Your feet pinched, champagne with raspberries, being introduced to most of the guests by my mother. You remember sable and Brie, pink satin, the smell of lilies, and how I kept finding you, making you feel on-kilter. You were the only one who knew about my news.
You remember Turkey, Greece—that was a surprise to everyone but we did it—tomatoes, black rice. You remember white houses and water the color of flags. You remember ruins of stairs with no end, cats flicking their tails that smelled like the sun.
You remember when I told my parents about the book deal, you were with me. The first thing my father said was, Okay, but…And I promised him I wouldn’t quit; I wouldn’t let him down. I promised you too. Different but not mutually exclusive.
You ask to take a break. You lie down but the words keep coming. Forgive me that I do not tell you to stop.
You want to tell the story of Max.